Sourced from the mul­tiple architec­tonic and tech­nological realities that exist in Warsaw, the sub­jects of this exhibition—machine, book, and body—are unseen. Instead they provide the under­lying tech­nical material for the hardware-​laden sculp­tures and abs­tract woven textiles in AIR. Together the objects intimate a still obstinate and unreadable body in trans­for­mation. Skin per­forated. Mind laced. Input ready. Con­figured for performance—work, pleasure, war. Not yet fully machine.

Since the eigh­teenth cen­tury, the machine has been used as a figure for under­stan­ding the body and society with a horizon for total conver­gence. The works in the exhibition materialize the evolution of this figuration and con­sider the political imperative of this body-​machine complex.

The sculp­tures track the produc­tion of the bodily sub­ject within the soft power of com­putational life—where coer­cion is replaced by con­tac­tless, ambient pres­sure. Arran­ged in an array outlining body meridian points, Force Touch, is a large-​scale wall sculp­ture of embed­ded air jet dif­fusers emit­ting forced air into the exhibition space. The work relates to the haptic tech­nology used for touch screens and track pads, mediating skin and machinic sur­face. An encoun­ter of force and pressure.

The wood Pranayama sculp­ture punc­tured with chromed Jacuzzi jets is presen­ted as an artifact—a product of rigid orthotic discipline and inner spiritual prac­tice. The mask-​like form, derived from exter­nal medical devices used to modify the shape and func­tion of the body, also appears to be a con­duit device. The con­trol of breath (“prāṇa”) in Ayurvedic prac­tice is the regulation of individual life force.

The selec­tion of jacquard woven textiles Tajima’s Negative Entropy series are abs­tract images of two dif­ferent tech­nologies and sites of produc­tion: a book prin­ting plant in Warsaw and a datacen­ter for cloud infrastruc­ture provider in New York. The works are trans­mutations of field recor­dings made in these locations—sound infor­mation to material object. Jacquard looms are con­sidered precur­sors to digital tech­nology, under­lining the inter­twining histories of textile and digital produc­tion. A machine at the Argraf* plant prin­ting a book about post-​war ruin architec­ture in Warsaw is both a source and sub­ject of the textiles. The unseen book here under­lines the relation­ship between textile and text produc­tion. “Textus” in Latin can mean woven fabric, con­nec­tive struc­ture, and anatomical tissue.

*Argraf specializes in limited-​run art publications and prints, inc­luding most of the books published by Raster.

Mika Tajima​ (born in 1975) is Japanese American artist, living and wor­king in New York. In the last fifteen years she has exhibited at numerous museums in the United States and around the world, inc­luding Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the South London Gallery,the Aspen Art Museum, the Seat­tle Art Museum, and the Gwan­gju Bien­nale (2016). She cooperates with the gal­leries Van Doren Waxter in New York and Taro Nasu in Tokyo.

The exhibition at Raster is the first individual show of the artist’s works in this part of Europe. In 2007 her works were presen­ted at the Ujaz­dow­ski Castle Centre for Con­tem­porary Art in Warsaw in the group show Uncer­tain States of America.

Pranayama, D, 2017, CNC routed solid walnut, stainless steel, 66 x 30,5 x 30,5 cm

Negative Entropy (Digital Ocean NYC2 4U NAS Unit, Pink, Single), 2017, cotton, polyester, rayon, wood, wool acoustic baffling felt, 91,4 x 67,3 x 3,8 cm

Kanjo Komyun, 2017, silkscreen and letterpress on paper, 68,5 x 51 cm, ed. of 12

Kanjo Komyun (detail)